Retro networking / WAN communities

[Paul Koning]

> On Apr 12, 2022, at 2:51 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> On 4/12/22 11:44 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
>> In my experience, "hub" is a vague marketing term. ...
>> Non-learning layer 2 packet switching devices to me are hypothetical beast, I never met one and I'm glad I didn't.
> 
> Nope.  Hubs are definitely not a marketing term, nor a hypothetical beast.
> 
> See the quote from the following Cisco page.

But that's a marketing document.

> ...
>> Building such a thing would be a silly thing to do in my view.
> 
> Well, it may be silly, but a non-learning device, or "hub", was ~> is very much a thing that was mass marketed and sold all over the place.
> 
> Switches supplanted hubs for obvious reasons in the mid-to-late '90s.

That doesn't match how I see the history.  From the DEC point of view, non-learning packet switches did not exist.  We sold either real bridges, or routers, or (early on) repeaters.  I never heard of a DEC customer using non-learning devices; if anyone had and ran into trouble I'm certain our answer would have been "please use a real bridge".

	paul